CLIVE’S POEMS

Poems are a way of identifying what’s happening, often in conversation with oneself, or with others. What do you hold dear, what needs to be said this moment? Our observations, for me, seemed the first accurate ones ever, as we shed the trance of World War II and the 1950s. Interesting to be young and growing, in consonance with the culture’s evolution, wherever that growth has taken us.

Writing poetry is a journey into form and into unknowable material. Guides are Olson’s “The line is a score of your personal breath” and Creeley’s “Form is never more than an expression of content,” plus the visual improvisations of John Wieners and Ginsberg’s broad sprawl. Exactly how does one best express what’s crucial?

Beginning a poem begins a new and ageless journey. If the journey is not pristine, we’re not tuned in. My background contains strong tugs toward Wieners’ exact statement of feeling, van Buskirk’s personal, apocalyptic vision, then the social power of Bob Dylan, feminism, radical politics, meditation, sonnets, and spoken word, alongside study of Eliot, the Greeks, Shakespeare, the anthologies. Chalcedony’s voice, a woman’s, somehow grounded me and inspired a rediscovery of passion. I started using the form of early poems and speaking in a more authentic voice, whether female or male.

The honesty, passion, and justice of the Beats, responsibility in answering a general need for authenticity, along with an unswerving focus on the topic and how to present it without distractions. These values seem undying to me. The image itself, the emotion itself, and the evolution embedded in them. How to follow it.

BEST WRITING TEACHER IN THE EAST BAY

CLIVE RECEIVES LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD IN POETRY

CLIVE’S BLOG

Structure of Large Work
The first topics of our new class, “Structure of Large Work,” seem straightforward enough. “Whose Story is It?” “What’s at Stake?” “Plot Works through Character,” “Sequence of Challenges,” and “Subplot.” What these compact phrases leave out are the intricacies.

Each topic is highly articulated, so much so that you could lose sight of why we write. Our texts, Field’s Screenplay and Vogel’s The Writers Journey, lay out schemes that are layered and absorbing. We could, instead of developing our writing, become entranced with getting each page to line up with what the guides propose.full entry